Necromanteion: The Fall of Ephyra
by Great Thumbs of Wisdom
Summary: This is not the story of Marcus Fenix's desertion, which cost humanity Ephyra. This is the story of the men he left behind to fight that last stand, and the events of the battle preceding it. Please read "Firefight COG" first. Updates every Wednesday
1. Prologue

**NECROMANTEION: "Oracle of the Dead" or "Oracle of Death".**

**The title will make sense by the end of the tale.**

**Read Firefight COG first, please. Google "Firefight COG a skirmish in three parts" and click the link on Epic Forums. You'll enjoy it, I think.**

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It was a day for funeral pyres, observed Miguel Torres as he watched his brother burn atop the pile of human dead.

"The world went to hell more than a decade ago," Janvier was saying nearby, probably to himself. "What are we gonna call _this?_"

"The devil's basement," replied Torres, not caring who his squadmate was actually talking to. He stood perfectly still, solemn eyes fixed on the fire licking at the still form of his dead brother. For a moment he glanced upward, following the embers of the cremation rising up to meet the shattered, half-abandoned buildings. Then, reluctantly, he turned away.

Sergeant Acheson was standing there, giving his men the moment they needed to mourn before they had to return to the front line. He had his helmet under one arm, the blue eyepieces glinting softly in the dim sunlight, himself all encased in armor.

"We need to go," he said, looking past Torres at the mass cremation. One needed only to look at his tired, angry eyes to see that he was looking for a specific body in the pile of corpses. He'd lost somebody today too; Corporal Rostegas, his oldest friend. They'd fought in the Pendulum Wars together, before Emergence Day had ended the practice of humans fighting humans.

Torres and Janvier were wearing their armor too, and held their helmets in their hands. They had their rifles slung over their shoulders, secured by fraying cloth bandoliers.

"Any time you're ready, Sarge," said Torres, pulling his helmet over his head in one fluid motion. With it on he was just another almost anonymous Gear in the Coalition of Ordered Governments, his face completely obscured. Only his bare arms distinguished him from the crowd.

Acheson and Janvier waited only a moment longer before they slipped on their own helmets. There was no time left to grieve with the Locust Horde bearing down on humanity's last cities.

"C'mon," ordered Acheson, voice slightly muffled by his headgear. He turned and stalked away, taking his assault rifle in both hands. Janvier followed him, resisting the urge to take one last look.

Torres could not resist that last look. As he pulled the big Lancer off his armored back, he turned to watch the cremation for just a few more seconds. The other mourners, civilians mostly, their faces haggard, stood in a loose circle around the pyre. One man, his face half concealed by a ragged beard, looked right at him with eyes full of pain and tears.

In the distance, the continuous sound of gunfire echoed off of devastated buildings. Torres turned to meet it, and left his dead brother far behind.


	2. Chapter 1

**The chapters aren't very long, sadly. But that means they're easier to manage.**

**Double update today, so next chapter should be up while you're reading this. Probably no double updates after this, though.**

**Please Read & Review, folks.**

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Carl Ragas slammed his massive duffle bag on the counter, sitting his helmet beside it. He rifled through the bag, taking inventory of his equipment.

"We have to move fast," Sergeant Trobek was saying as he fed bullet after bullet into a rifle magazine. "The grubs are making a push on the residential district. Control says they've opened a fissure, and you know what that means. Locust reinforcements."

Private Warren Ricard looked up from his work on a Mulcher's ammo belt. "Is Command sending us to attack the fissure?" He looked worried, face pale and drawn. He had good right to be; offensive actions against the Locust invariably ended in defeat, and had for years.

Trobek shrugged his shoulders, shoving the newly filled clip into his Lancer. "The Lieutenant will fill us in when he arrives," said the grizzled young Sergeant as he opened and closed the rifle's magazine catch. Satisfied that it was in working order, he began attaching the chain to his chainsaw bayonet.

Carl started at the mention of a Lieutenant. He was still a new recruit, barely out of basic training and woefully unprepared for fighting grubs. The squad hadn't bothered talking to him much, and they certainly hadn't filled him in on the unit's superiors. He wondered who this Lieutenant was, and how capable they were.

"Lieutenant Kim?" asked Norman Tarol, one of the other new recruits to the Section who had been attached to Bravo One as a replacement. He was only with Bravo Two because most of his squadmates were attending a cremation. In fact, the only guy in Bravo One who _wasn't_ at that cremation was dealing with last minute family business.

"Yeah," replied Warren, snapping two ammo belts together. "The Lieutenant. The el-tee. Ping-Pong."

"Ping-Pong?" inquired Carl, strapping himself into his chestplates. Now his interest was definitely piqued.

"Yeah," snapped Lewis Graham, the oldest and bitterest member of Bravo Two. "It's the Lieutenant's frigging nickname."

"Just don't call him that to his face," muttered Trobek, engrossed in putting the chainsaw back on his Lancer. His facial scars pulled together as he worked, creating the impression that he'd been sewn together by some sort of maniacle scientest who couldn't properly handle a needle. That was a bit unsettling, because Trobek was only a handful of years older than Carl.

"Why do you call him Ping-Pong?" asked Norman quizzically. He was struggling to buckle one of the straps on his thigh plate.

"Because he shaves his head," replied Warren, running one hand back and forth over his curly hair. "And he's from Maranday."

Carl wondered where Maranday was, and whether it was a city or a country; more importantly, he wondered how being from Maranday had anything to do with being likened to a smooth ball when one's bald head had already earned them that nickname.

Apparently, Norman knew as much about Maranday as Carl did; he was frowning, obviously perplexed. Both young men, after all, had grown up in a world where the only nation left standing had been reduced to a handful of war-torn cities by a race of violent subterranean monsters. Their years of schooling had consisted more or less of economics and Coalition propoganda, not geography.

Carl opened his mouth to speak just as the door to the Barracks flew open to reveal Rastin Kittur, the broad-shouldered Sergeant of Bravo Three. His face was grim and there were bags under his eyes.

"It's time," he said, hooking a thumb over one shoulder. Carl was dimly aware of how much noise was let into the room when the door was open, but his attention was focused almost entirely on the darkly-tanned Sergeant's impressive locks of hair.

Trobek took a moment longer to slap one final component into place on his rifle before running after the older Sergeant, helmet under one arm.

"Let's go," said Carl, shoving two more clips into his ammo pouches before grabbing his own helmet. Norman, still struggling with his thigh plate, protested vigorously.

"Here," sighed an exasperated Carl. "Let me help you with that."

The problem turned out to be a broken buckle. Norman ended up digging a spare thigh plate out of a closet filled with similar items, substituting it for his own. The two young men mad their way out of the room and down a crowded hall, brushing past Gears that looked to have been fighting all day; Carl noticed a number of the men bearing minor wounds, too exhausted to notice them or just too concerned about lack of resources to waste a few bandages.

"This is bad, man," whispered Norman as they made their way down the stairs to the bottom floor. He was looking over his shoulder at the weary Gears, who looked ready to fall on their cots rather or not they were wearing blood-smeared armor.

"That's Charlie Five, right?" asked Carl, recognizing the tired Gears as part of another strike team similar in purpose to Bravo Section.

"Yeah," replied Norman gravely. "That's them. And they're short two men."

They emerged from the stairwell to find that the Barracks's common room was packed with even more exhausted Gears, many of whom had fallen asleep on the floor in full armor. Every table was packed with men streaked with grime and blood, busily gorging themselves on as much food as they could get their hands on. Carl had to assume they were on rotation; they'd be back in the fight within a few short hours, probably still too tired to walk. He suddenly dreaded the idea of fighting a war that was as terrible and grueling as the one against the Locust Horde.

Norman tugged on his thick canvas sleeve, directing his attention to a number of Gears who stood by the exits on the far side of the dilapidated room. It was most of Bravo Section, with their weapons on hand or stacked in the corner. The three Sergeants and a Corporal who was holding a Longshot sniper rifle were gathered in a loose circle around a man with a clean shaven head.

The bald man was outlining mission objectives when the replacement Gears finally worked their way through the human maze. Carl recognized him immediately as Lieutenant Kim; he'd seen him once before, boarding a King Raven helicopter the day he'd arrived from basic training. The man's ethnic origins were immediately made clear by the time Carl got close enough to see his face; he had dark eyebrows that seemed to be fixed in the manner of an angry glare, and his hard eyes were ever so slightly slanted inward.

"Just worry about holding off the Locust while Bravo Four places the charges," the Lieutenant was saying in a forceful and authoritative voice. He had a commanding attitude that said _get it done_, and Carl didn't wonder for a moment why the man was one of Colonel Hoffman's elite inner circle. "Let me worry about the Hammer of Dawn. Understood, Sergeant?"

_Hammer of Dawn? We've got an orbital laser under our command now? Those things destroy cities!_

Acheson, the grizzled leader of Bravo One, nodded respectfully, eyes narrowed; he was obviously pissed off at something. "Yes sir," he said, sounding almost like he actually meant it.

Kim was already walking away, finger in one ear as he engaged in a comms conversation with COG Control.

"Look at that," said Norman, sounding jealous. "He's got a genuine rifle sling on that Lancer."

He was right. A slick black sling held the officer's rifle on his back just as tight as could be. It even had a metal buckle. Carl secretly wished for something like that; all he had was a leather strap that was probably about as old as he was.

"Ignore the sling," snapped Acheson, bumping Norman's shoulder roughly with his rifle. "When we're being briefed, I expect you to show up on time unless I've given you orders otherwise!"

Carl cast a quick glance at Trobek, expecting a similar scolding. It didn't come; the man raised a disapproving eyebrow at him, and that was it.

Sergeant Kitture tied back his mane of hair and bundled it into his helmet. It stuck out by several inches, covering the back of his neck with unraveling black strands. "Where's the rest of your squad, Cody?" he asked Acheson, using the older man's first name.

"They're at the landing pad," replied Acheson. "Reports have grubs getting past our lines and targetting anything vulnerable."

He didn't need to expand on that. Grounded aircraft was very vulnerable, and very valuable.

"Could be just a rumor," suggested Trobek, scratching at the back of his short-cropped blonde head with thick, weathered gloves.

"Even still..." grumbled Acheson, casting an anxious glance at the dozens of exhausted and bleeding Gears filling up the Barracks.

It didn't take much to kill a conversation these days, noted Carl. He licked his dry lips and realized he'd forgotten his canteen.

"Gonna be a hard day," someone mumbled. Carl had the feeling that that would prove to be a terrible understatement.


	3. Chapter 2

**Double update today, yeah. Whoo**

**Please review if you read. Updates every Wednesday.**

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Rastin Kittur grunted loudly as he helped lift the oversized Mortar into the open bay of a King Raven. His back popped, a staccato sound like a machine-gun being unloaded into a crowd.

"Geez, these things weigh a ton!" complained Kai Tettonai, a South Islander and Bravo Section's only untrained Medic. He had a rather large head; his helmet barely fit him.

Kittur realigned his back with a sharp twist to the left, relieved to have offloaded the massive ordinance that they'd carried all the way from the armory two blocks away. "Just be glad we have one of them," he said, voice muffled inside the padded helmet. "It's going to prove invaluable."

Kai put up his hands. "You don't gotta tell me, Rastin. I'm as ready to bring hell with the thing as you are. Gonna be a big fight, right?"

"The Lieutenant seems to think so," grumbled Howerd Sandell, a lanky beanpole of a Gear who was known as much for his titanic strength as for his sour melancholy.

"Calling it now," said another man, Carol Graham, as he loaded spare mortar shells into an enormous duffle bag that was already splitting at the seams. "Ten, no, _twenty_ sh*tloads of grubs."

Kai snorted loudly.

Frowning, Graham turned to his NCO. "What do you think, Sarge?" he asked.

Rastin was still taken aback by just how young Graham looked; he couldn't have been older than seventeen, even if he was six feet tall and weighed in at almost two hundred pounds. Of course, all replacements these days were like that. They didn't even fit their armor.

"What do I think?" repeated Kittur. "I think that you're a frigging optimist, that's what I think."

He cast a glance at the Mortar, its enormous bulk taking up half the leg room in the helicopter's troop compartment. Yes, twenty sh*tloads was being optimistic if Command was handing out _these_ things.

But he couldn't let himself think like that. Once he started then he'd begin doubting himself, his men, everything. And when a man filled himself with doubt, he couldn't help but lose his sanity or his life. He needed to be confident, or he wouldn't be coming back from this mission. It was as simple as that.

Climbing into the Raven, Rastin planted his boots firmly on the floor and grabbed one of the handholds above the door. "Ready to go?" he asked his squad, yelling as the rotors began to pick up speed.

The Raven was packed full with five Gears; they might have been able to fit a couple more if not for the Mortar and its ammunition. All of the men nodded, obviously ready, and a few yelled in their helmets. Kai strummed his Lancer like it was a guitar.

Satisfied, Rasting slid the bay door shut and motioned for Howerd to do the same on the other side. With the doors closed it was much quieter, and there was less danger of getting shot or being thrown out. After a moment, the Raven's door gunner, who was also apparently the crew chief and co-pilot, reached back and gave Bravo Two the thumbs up. In the cockpit, the pilot yelled something obscene and engaged the controls. The Raven lurched into the air, rotors whining, and for a moment Rastin's guts levitated in his chest.

Norman hated flying. King Ravens were exceedingly loud and made a big, presentable, black target for anything in the air or on the ground. The only plus side was that they were nimble, and in a pinch they always had a few large guns to fall back on. That wasn't enough to save your ass if the Locust started using Anti-Air, but a good chopper pilot went a long way. Bravo One had ended up with one of the good pilots, fortunately.

"Welcome to COG Air," joked Janvier, sitting on the floor with his legs dangling over the edge like he was just asking to be flung out. He was staring intently down at the ravaged city of Ephyra flying past below them, and at the taller buildings on either side that the Ravens were using for cover.

"Where's the inflight movie?" grumbled Frank Ito, one of the younger veterans in Bravo Section. He sounded almost serious; Norman had to do a double take before he realized the man was ribbing the Raven's crew.

The pilot, an older man who'd flown birds back in the Pendulum Wars, seemed insulted. "What, is my Raven too old-tech for you, private? Don't make me kick your sorry ass out of that door!"

But apparently he was joking too, because Frank was smiling when he pulled his helmet off. He jumped up, leaned into the cockpit, and shot back a threat that turned out to be some sort of in-joke between the two of them. The pilot and crew chief started laughing uproarously.

"Keep your helmet on, Frank," snapped Acheson irritably when the younger man returned to his seat.

"Sorry sir," acquiesced Frank, slipping his head back into the bulky piece of hardware.

Norman reached up to his own helmet and checked to make sure that it was secure. It was, but he still felt terribly uneasy. That was probably because he was flying, and about to get dropped into the most threatening situation in his life. Yeah, he'd fought grubs before. But Control's reports were getting worse by the minute. The grubs had brought the big guns, and they weren't showing any mercy.

"Ready for a fight, man?" asked the newest addition to the squad, a stout little kid with a mop of red hair. Norman thought his name was Smith Tucker, or maybe Tucker Smith, but he'd only just met him a few hours before. All he knew was that he wasn't very fond of the new rook, and he was sure the rest of the squad shared his sentiments.

"You fought any grubs yet?" questioned Torres, bumping the rook roughly with one enormous bare arm. "Have you even seen one yet?"

The kid shied away, answering by inaction. No, he hadn't seen any grubs. He was a gung-ho little sh*t, and Norman had no doubt that he would try to charge the first one he saw if he didn't piss his pants first.

"Keep your mouth shut then," Torres snapped angrily after a few moments of silence on the rook's part. Norman felt himself lose any respect he might have had for the newbie, and almost laughed at the irony of his prejudice.

Janvier suddenly leaned back and slapped Torres on the leg, drawing his attention.

"What is it?" asked the big man, shouting at the top of his lungs to be heard.

"Just look!" replied Janvier, pointing wildly over the edge.

Everyone but Frank and the Sergeant crowded around the open door, gripping handholds or safety straps to look over the edge. Norman, who had a seat by the door, craned his neck to look out.

The first thing he noticed was the sickening drop to the streets below, and for a moment he thought was going to fall out. He already had a white-knuckle grip on the safety handle, but in his brief moment of panic he thought he'd snapped it off. His stomach did a backflip and kicked his guts.

The second thing he noticed was that the streets flying past far below were full of gaping block holes.

"Holy..." began Torres, the rest of his words torn away by the howling wind.

Norman couldn't help but finish the man's sentence.

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The bay of the Raven was absolute chaos as everybody tried to get a good look at the streets below. Acheson was cussing a blue streak trying to get everyone in and strapped down, but nobody really noticed. All they could look at were those damn holes in the street.

Janvier didn't feel the same hysterical panic as the rest of the squad. If anything, he felt calmer knowing that the grubs had infiltrated Ephyra. How he could relax in a situation like this was beyond even him, but that relaxation had kept him alive for almost ten years and that was fine by him.

Struggling to his feet against the press of bodies at the door, Janvier clipped his rifle to its makeshift sling and grabbed a safety handle. Somebody put their hand on his shoulder plates as if to steady themselves; when he turned his head he saw that it was Frank.

Frank was one of those enigmas in life. He was always off on "family business" when the squad was on leave, even when everybody else stuck together. Nobody in the squad had family; Acheson may have had a wife, maybe even kids, but they were long gone. Frank never really talked about his family, but they were his reason for abandoning the rest of them every chance he got; some of the guys in Bravo figured that he just went to a prostitute or something, but Janvier had his doubts about that. He'd seen the guy once, sitting on his bunk with his hand in his strawberry-blonde hair, staring at a picture of a little girl with eyes like cute little buttons.

"Are the grubs already this far into the city?" Frank was asking, incredulous. "Isn't there supposed to be granite under here?"

"There's no way they're this far into Ephyra already!"

"Where's the front line? Can you see any bodies down there?"

"Yeah, like I can pick anything out at two hundred meters in a moving chopper!"

The Raven banked right, threatening to tip the squad of Gears out of the bay. Torres, who had been leaning half out of the bay, swore and jumped back into his seat. The veins stood out in his biceps as he gripped the seat, clenching his rifle between his knees.

"Sit _down!_" barked Acheson, dragging Frank and the newest rookie, Tuck Smith, by the high collars of their armor.

Relinquishing his hold on the metal handle, Janvier grabbed a safety line and clipped it onto his belt. There were no more empty seats, so he grabbed the open door and slammed it shut; Acheson did the same on the other side. For a moment, actually felt almost quiet.

"Keep your _asses _in your goddamn _seats!_" the Sergeant was yelling at the top of his lungs, muscled neck bulging. "If we get shot down by Nemacyst, I need you to be able to survive the crash, dammit!"

Janvier slumped against the wall, anticipating that the Sergeant's wrath to fall upon him next. But it didn't come, so he stayed standing and strummed his fingers against the Lancer hanging across his chest.

"So what's the situation, Sarge?" he asked after a moment. "Any radio chatter?'

Acheson had a finger on the earpiece built into his helmet. He was shaking his head.

"Is it bad?" Frank asked, nervous hands on the rifle in his lap.

The Sergeant nodded. "Oh yeah. It's bad. The grubs came up behind the front line."

Janvier frowned. Grubs in front and behind that many Gears spelled disaster. And how had the ugly bastards gotten past the layers of granite the city was supposed to be built on? He was tempted to open up the channel and start listening in, but he wasn't sure he'd like what he heard.

A voice crackling in his ear cut off any further thought. It was Lieutenant Mathieson, a former front-line Gear who'd lost both legs and been promoted to comms officer with a desk job.

"Bravo One, come in. Bravo One, I repeat..."

"We hear you Control," snapped Acheson, probably annoyed that his eavesdropping had been interrupted. "What's the situation?"

"We can't contact kim or the rest of Bravo? Have they been shot down?"

Janvier felt startled, something that he was by no means used to. The rest of Bravo was tailing Bravo One in their own Ravens. They were probably in range for short-range comms. Hell, if he opened up the bay doors again he'd probably see some of them.

The pilot chimed in, having most likely been listening to the conversation on a rigged earpiece. "This is KR-911, transporting Bravo One. KR units 207, 621 and 993 are still following with the rest of Bravo."

Mathieson sounded almost relieved, even if his voice was frayed by static.

"Thank you, KR-911. If you can broadcast short-range to them, please inform Kim that the mission is unchanged, and to proceed with the objectives."

"Wilco," replied the pilot. "KR-911 out."

The comms stopped crackling and cut off.

"Well that was a waste of time," muttered Frank, leaning his head back against the cushioned bulkhead.

"Control's just making sure Kim stays up to date," said Janvier, patting his Lancer absentmindedly. "Wouldn't want Ping-Pong turning back now, would we?"

"I don't see why they're worried," Frank retorted. "When has Kim ever turned back on a mission?"

Janvier shrugged. The man did have a point; Lieutenant Kim possessed a perfectly spotless record that stretched back into the Pendulum Wars. There was a rumor that he'd led a bayonet charge against tanks in the dead of winter, and Janvier could only assume that took some serious stones.

In point of fact, Janvier doubted that Kim had ever retreated under his own volition in his entire career. The guy was as cool under fire as anybody he'd ever seen, possibly even more so. There was a reason why the man held such an esteemed place on Colonel Hoffman's short list of go-getters.

_WHUMPFH_

The muffled explosion rattled the helicopter, quickly followed by another. The Raven dipped, then righted itself; Janvier was slammed against the bulkhead with an arm in his face. But the dependable bird shook off the blasts, apparently unharmed.

"What was that?" squeaked the rookie, Smith. He held his Lancer like he was about to drop into a firing stance.

The pilot answered the question before anybody could come up with a suitably acid remark. "Roger that, 621, thanks for the assist. We'll keep an eye out for more."

The co-pilot leaned out of the space that connected the cockpit to the bay, his hands probably still on one of the big door guns. "Sorry about the turbulence, folks. Just a couple of stray Nemacyst trailing us. The other Ravens took 'em out before they could catch up."

Smith's adams apple bobbed up and down, his fear as obvious as daylight. Janvier was willing to place bets that the kid hadn't ever seen a Nemacyst, even though the things could get as far as Jacinto.

Of course, kids that saw a Nemacyst usually didn't live long enough to tell about it.

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Tuck Smith gulped, trying to swallow his fear. It tasted bitter, and he wished the Sergeant would let him pull his helmet off for a good gulp out of his canteen.

_Nemacyst._

He'd heard the word all his life, spoken like a curse by Gears and civilians alike. Pilots seemed to have a special hatred for the things, often keeping track of how many they'd killed since they'd earned their wings. Tuck knew that they smelled awful and tehy exploded, coating everything in disgusting black ink that could poison or kill. He'd heard them at night, seen the aftermaths of the explosions they caused.

But he'd never actually seen one, and somehow, that made him feel both weak and isolated. He could feel the accusing stares the other Gears were giving him. Acccusing him of what? Being inexperienced wasn't a crime; they'd all been like him once.

He looked at Torres on his left. The man was big, with huge, bare arms that looked capable of crushing just about anything. The guy was a real surly bastard, absolutely hated Tuck, and but surely he'd been a rookie once too...

He looked at the man sitting across from him, Norman. The guy was still a rook like him, even if he had seen a little action before they'd transferred him to Bravo. But when Tuck looked at him, Norman just looked away; there was no sympathy to find there, no understanding to turn to. Tuck almost hated him for that, even though it wasn't in his capacity to hate anything that wasn't gray and scaly.

But screw him. He'd be a veteran soon enough. He'd kill a grub, a swarm of them even. He touched the carbide-enhanced teeth of his rifle's chainsaw bayonet and felt reassured. He'd carve up a Locust for himself and then everybody would accept him for sure.

He gripped the weapon with both hands, touching the trigger for just an instant.

In that instant he was changed forever.


	4. Chapter 3

**Remember that a long line across the screen marks a shift in POV.**

**I know you don't want to bother with this story, thinking that I won't finish it. That's fine. Just make sure to review.**

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_"Proceed with the objective."_

Command's words, relayed to him by King Raven 911, weighed heavily on Minh Young Kim's shoulders.

"KR units," he spoke into the comms device mounted on his ear. "This is Bravo Actual requesting a sit-rep, over."

The radio crackled briefly in his ear before he got a response.

"This is KR Niner Niner Three, ferrying Bravo Three. Nemacyst sights in all directions, over."

"KR-621 here. Taking small arms fire from the streets. Lots of Nemacyst, Lieutenant. Over."

"Raven 911 here, we're seeing grubs on the streets and in the windows."

So that was it, then. Surrounded, behind enemy lines, about to attack a high value target that was certain to be swarming with Locust troops. But that was nothing he couldn't handle. He'd fought the enemy for most of his life, spilling men's blood in the Pendulum Wars and Locust blood in the years after. Some of the blood had even been his own, and nearly all of it had been behind the lines.

Minh liked it behind the lines. There was a strange comfort in the continuous struggle of staying alive, hanging on by the skin of one's teeth, and of accomplishing the missions that nobody else would dare to take. He felt his spirits rise to meet his confidence as he reflected on the inevitability of his success. There were many types of men in the world, but it was the ones with unshakable self-confidence that made the difference.

The pilot's voice tore him from his quiet reverie.

"Thirty seconds ETA from the drop. Prepare to disembark, ladies."

Minh risked a quick glance out of the open bay doors. Beside the occasional burst of machine-gun fire from the Ravens, matched by fast-flying bulbous shapes that erupted into black clouds when hit by the guns, it was actually quite peaceful in the city. There were no battles raging in the streets below, only a few lines of distant smoke that reached up to the sky like living tendrils. There was fighting, he knew, and some of the heaviest in months. But it was nowhere to be seen. He might have thought things were peaceful if not for a brief glimpse of several misshapen gray creatures that darted into an open doorway. He was too far up and moving to fast to distinguish the shapes, but he knew Locust when he saw them.

He turned his gaze to the men of Bravo Four. There were three of them, all sporting the standard-issue helmet. Their leader, Corporal Paul Sample, had been a brash young Petrel pilot in the Pendulum Wars, a veteran of more than three dozen bombing missions. He was in his mid-thirties, maybe five or six years younger than Minh, and he carried a bolt-action sniper rifle that was as battered as his blast-pocked armor.

Sample was an interesting man, and Minh felt he owed him a great deal of respect. He certainly had a useful skillset, much wider than any other Gear he had ever known; he could fly anything with fixed wings, he was the only good sniper in Bravo Section, and he was leading an EOD team that had disposed of more than twenty bombs in the last month alone. He was a renaissance man in an army of jacks-of-all-trades.

"Check your charges," the Corporal ordered in a cut-glass posh voice, with just the tiniest hint of a foreign accent. He snapped the bolt of his rifle into place with practiced ease, not even looking down as he did so. "Make sure everything's in working order, then check it again."

Private Janos, a replacement who'd transferred out of the Engineer Corps a few months back, gave a thumbs up. Minh couldn't help but notice that the thumb on the man's glove was split open, revealing a foul yellow thumbnail that had been chewed ragged.

"All good," said the other man, Private Nelsan. If not for the blast damage and multitude of black specks imbedded in his armor, Minh might have liked the man. Instead, all he saw was a careless rook with a reckless adoration for explosions, and another potential weak link. He didn't like weak links. Weak links killed squads. But he was stuck with Nelsan, and he would have to make do.

"All charges packed and ready to go," confirmed Sample, looking over his own explosives before snapping the bipod onto the underside of his Longshot. "Ready, Lieutenant?'

The Raven began to circle and lose altitude. As a precaution, both door guns opened fire, spraying hundreds of rounds into the air on all sides to cover teh drop. Minh felt vaguely annoyed at the Corporal's question, and, to a lesser extent, the useless waste of ammo by the Raven's crew. Was he ready? They were about to disembark, of course he was ready.

The helicopter came to a stop ten feet above the cracked asphault of what had once been a boulevard, all guns still blazing sporadically. Minh looked over the edge on his right, judged his landing spot, and jumped.

The impact jarred the Lieutenant's teeth, sending shockwaves into his knees and back. He wasn't wearing the same full-body armor that the COG had been so proud of back in the Pendulum Wars, but the new stuff was still enormously heavy. He stayed in a squat for almost half a second, trying to keep his balance on the unsteady, pulverized paving, before he hopped to the left and took a knee. His Lancer went up to his shoulder automatically, sweeping back and forth all on its own. He looked down the sights, searching for a target, and actually felt disappointed when there were none.

"Clear left!" he shouted.

"Clear right!" shouted Sample.

The Raven lifted into the air and banked left, guns falling silent as it fled the area. The sky, full of dark and foreboding clouds, seemed almost to swallow it up.

The two privates, who had jumped out on the opposite side of the Raven, darted into cover a few meters from Minh's position. Years of fighting had left the city streets strewn with piled sandbags and scattered cement blocks, all pockmarked and ragged.

Minh himself settled comfortably into the shelter of a low concrete wall, its surface visibly marred by gunfire. Wary to leave his Lancer even for a moment, he sat the rifle over his knee when he put a finger to his ear.

"This is Bravo Actual. All squads, sit-rep!"

He let go of the switch and waited. In the distance, more than likely not two blocks away, he could hear the _chokka-chokka-chokka_ of a King Raven's rotors. One of the helicopters, KR-911 by his reckoning, flitted between two tall buildings on the horizon.

Bravo Four waited for what seemed like an eternity, shifting anxiously as they scanned every window, every shadow, through the scopes of their rifles. It was deathly silent save for the faint sound of far-off and continuous gunfire, and the howling wind driving down the road.

Suddenly the comms crackled. The gruf and surly voice of Acheson filled Minh's ear with reassuring noise.

"This is Bravo One. No resistance here, just a lot of fresh emergence holes. All the grubs must be moving toward our lines."

The channel switched off, before being replaced by another almost instantly. This time it was the voice of Rastin Kittur filling up his ear. He sounded grim and worried, as Minh had fully expected from such an unconfident man.

"Bravo Three on the ground, sir. Limited resistance, multiple confirmed kills."

The background noise of gunfire and someone shouting in wild exubrance threatened to drown out the Sergeant's voice. It died off a few seconds later, ending with a final burst as someone, apparently Kittur himself, finished off a dying Drone.

"Hostiles elimated. Heading for the objective, sir. See you there."

"Copy that Bravo Three," responded Minh, momentarily distracted by a piece of trash floating in the wind; for a moment he had almost thought it was a Locust, his finger tensing on the trigger.

Sergeant Kalan Trobek spoke up next, his voice completely calm and absolutely commanding.

"Bravo Two here. Moving toward the objective now, sir. We are seeing a _[i]lot[/i] _of hostiles. Raven's handling them for now."

"Tell that chopper to get the hell out, Sergeant!" snapped Minh. "The birds are supposed to be evacuating the Gears trapped in the business district!"

There was irony in that order, he knew. There was a very high chance that Bravo was now trapped behind enemy lines as well, and he couldn't afford to lose Trobek. But orderes were orders, and Command needed evac birds.

"Wilco, sir. Bravo Two out."

The comms shut off and Bravo Four was left in the silence.

Minh felt suddenly reassured. The silence meant that the Locust were not fully aware of the Section's presence. At least, not just yet. They would be soon enough.

"Get ready to start moving, Sample," said Minh, slinging his Lancer over his shoulder before securing it with a quick jerk on the fiber strap.

With deliberate slowness, the Lieutenant reached for the single most important piece of equipment he'd ever held. It was a targetting laser, a small lump of plastic and metal that resembled a huge pistol with a fragile cylinder attached to the end. He repeated the name of the all-powerful weapon in his head, breathing the words as he lightly touched the blinking controls. With this weapon he could destroy anything from entire cities to a single Locust Wretch with one focused laser called down from the heavens.

_The Hammer of Dawn._

* * *

Tuck pounded the pavement, darting from one burned out old car to a heap of rubble. His extremeties tingled faintly as a cloud of dust erupted over his head; the quiet report of a distant rifle soon followed.

"Where the hell is that sniper?" growled Frank, who was already squatting behind the mound of shattered concrete. He put a hand up to brace himself and slowly raised his head. He was quickly driven back down again as another high caliber round ricocheted off a slab just in front of his face.

Tuck ground his teeth and swore. His legs ached from the exertion of running everywhere crouched, his lungs burned fiercely, and his nerves were beginning to fray. How could anyone stand this kind of stress day in and day out? All he had to do was catch one lucky bullet and it was all over.

Sergeant Acheson's voice chimed in over the comms, barely distuingishable through the static that had slowly been eating away at the radio frequencies for the past ten minutes. "Janvier, Torres. Move up and use the car for cover."

The rest of the squad had to be at least a hundred meters away, and on a different street. Ever since they'd scattered when the first sniper bullet had nearly taken off the Sergeant's arm, Tuck had seen neither hide nor hair of them. If they were still attracting sniper fire then there must have been multiple snipers, or just one in a very tall building. He looked for the tallest thing around, and realized abruptly that there were more than a dozen buildings nearby that stood ten stories tall or more.

The distant _crack_ of a Longshot bolt-action echoed down the desolate streets. Tuck flinched out of reflex, keeping himself tucked away behind the rubble; the points of his chainsaw bayonet dug uncomfortably into his leg. A moment later there was another shot, this one noticeably louder and far too soon after the first round.

Frank swore, then put a hand to the side of his helmet. "There's at least two of the bastards, Sarge. They're staggering reloads."

That made Tuck worried. He'd been told that you should rush a sniper after they'd fired, because Longshots could only hold one bullet at a time. But if the grubs were taking turns shooting... how could something so monstrous and dumb know how to work like that, anyway? It didn't make sense.

He felt something strike his shoulder pad and nearly jumped out his armor before he realized it was Frank getting his attention.

"Come on," urged the older Gear, flicking his head to one side. "Let's get inside. No use hanging our asses out here in the breeze."

Keeping so low that he looked like he was about to kiss the ground, Frank slipped into an open door on the right. Tuck followed him on his hands and knees, pushing his rifle ahead of him. He had to turn sideways to get through the cramped opening; part of the building's roof had collapsed long ago, leaving the mound of rubble stacked against the doorframe.

The interior turned out to be some sort of cafe, filled with trash and a few broken tables; nearly everything else had been scavenged years ago, even the chairs. A line of rectangular windows wrapped about the entirety of the two walls facing the perpendicular streets, as the cafe sat on the corner of an intersection. Frank crawled on his belly toward these windows, Lancer slung over his back with a length of old, fraying rope.

"Lots of glass," he observed, unperturbed by the fact that he was worming around in it. "Be careful."

Tuck felt insulted that Frank was leading him around by the hand as if he were a child. Then he realized that the other Gear might have been warning him to be wary of the windows. It would be safer to lie down, even if he did have reservations about what was all over the floor. He was wearing thick canvas for clothing, after all, not to mention his armor. He'd be fine.

It took less than a minute to crawl to the far wall, even if it did feel like an hour. Glass tinkled and crunched all the way. It was disconcerting to have the stuff crackling crackling under his hands and thighs, especially when he felt the sharp edges rubbing against his gloves or the crotch of his pants. It was even more disconcerting to know that there might very well have been a sniper somewhere at just the right angle to put a bullet through the window... and him.

Frank was propped up on his stomach against the window when Tuck finally arrived. The man was completely submerged in shadow, only a couple armor indicator lights and the eyepieces of his helmet glowing dimly in the gray light.

"Any idea where they are?" asked Tuck, leaning against the wall. "The snipers, I mean."

Frank shook his head silently, still staring intently out the window at a line of highrises in the distance. Suddenly he seized up, almost like he was looking down the barrel of a Longshot, becoming perfectly still in a heartbeat.

"What?" blurted Tuck, heart pounding in his chest as he drew his knees up to the rifle across his chest. "What is it?"

Frank didn't answer him. Instead, he put a hand to the side of his helmet and opened a channel to Acheson. Tuck's stomach did a cartwheel.

"Sarge? Sarge, I think I know where one of the bastards is hiding."

* * *

Feeling completely exposed, Norman rolled himself ever so slowly onto his side and pulled himself through the hole in the wall. It felt like a dozen snipers had their sights trained on him, watching his legs sticking out onto the sidewalk as he wriggled and writhed his way into a half-collapsed building.

_One inch at a time..._

"We're moving too goddamn slow!" Acheson snarled, clasping a dirty rag to his bleeding arm. He was standing in the middle of a rubble-filled room with Janvier and Torres.

"Sir, you gotta let me look at that." Janvier reached for the rag, only to be shoved aside by the wounded Sergeant.

"It just clipped me," the man broke out savagely, referring to the bullet that had taken a piece out of his upper arm and alerted the squad to the presence of Locust sharpshooters. "I'm fine."

Struggling into the cramped space, Norman was surprised to see that the ruined building was full of large holes. Even in here they'd have to worry about a particularly lucky Locust putting rounds in their heads from a mile away. Was anywhere safe?

The comms began to crackle as Norman made his way on his belly to the far side of the room, hugging the exterior wall. It was Frank, his voice hushed and tense.

"Sarge?" he called. His voice was hard to distinguish through the static. "Sarge, I think I know where one of the bastards is hiding."

Acheson's free hand shot up to the side of his helmet. "What? Repeat that, Frank, you're breaking up. Switch to short-range comms."

The static-drowned voice was even harder to discern this time. "What?"

The veterans in the room switched to their short-range frequency. Norman followed suite and found that Frank must have too, because he heard him clearly a moment later.

"Sir? I think I know where a sniper is."

Everybody seemed shocked, and at least a little relieved; Norman especially so. In this ruined city, where there were no straight lines to any destination, a sniper could lay up almost anywhere and just wait for trade. Locust snipers could probably wait for days, but Norman had a hard time picturing a grub patiently waiting for a single target to cross a far-away street.

"Alright, Frank. Where's the damn thing hiding?"

Frank replied almost immediately, sounding both unsure and confident at the same time. "Can you see that old apartment complex a few blocks down the road?"

Torres, who had climbed up to what little was left of the second floor of the building, shouted excitedly. "Yeah, I see it! I see two actually."

"I saw muzzle flash in the one on the left."

Acheson had pocketed the bloody rag after tearing off a strip to use as a crude field dressing. He appeared beside Norman, looming high above him as he peered through one of the gaps in the walls. Norman felt like he was going to be stepped on.

"I see it, Frank. Which window?"

"Fifth story, corner on the right."

"How convenient. I'd bet money that the bastard's still in there if I had any of the sh*t left. Frank, how about you and Torres go hunting?'

Torres, who was jammed in a corner atop a mound of debris about fifteen feet up, slapped his chestplates. "I'd love to, Sarge."

Frank sounded just as excited. "With pleasure. What do I do with the rook?"

"We'll rendezvous and you can leave him with us," replied Acheson, hand on his wounded arm. "See that shop? The one with all the windows, big green sign with the dinosaur on it?"

"I see it, Sarge."

"Get there as soon as you can. Keep your head, please."

"Wilco. Out."

Norman rose to his knees and peered out at the distant apartments. They weren't the tallest buildings around, but they did have a perfect view of everything within four blocks in Bravo's direction. Of course a sniper would hole up in there!

Torres dropped down with a grunt and the sound of shattering bricks.

"Let's go, rook." He slapped Norman hard on the back of the helmet. "Grubs aren't going to kill themselves."

Janvier laughed as he wriggled his way out of the nearest hole into a dark alley. "Wouldn't it be great," he chuckled, "If they did?"

Norman might have actually laughed if his heart hadn't been beating so hard in his chest.


	5. Chapter 4

**Sorry about the late update. I got Black Ops. It ate all my spare time. To make up for it, I'll be posting a second chapter later tonight provided the good people on Epic Forums generate enough discussion about the story there...**

**I'll be putting the current POV squad and character at the beginning of each switch between POVs. Will go back and do that for previous chapters in the future.**

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* * *

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"You've got twenty minutes," said Acheson, his tone unusually calm and measured. He tapped his rifle absentmindedly, his gaze fixed on his men. "Once you reach the apartments we won't be able to communicate with you. There're Seeders around, so we'll be using short-range comms."

Torres and Frank nodded in unison. In the field that was often as good as a salute; better even, because the grubs had figured out how to target officers and non-coms years ago. They may have been in a gas station, out of sight of any grubs, but you never knew when the monsters were watching.

"Good hunting, guys," said Janvier, striking his Lancer against theirs in turn. "Keep your heads."

Torres slapped Janvier on the shoulder. "You watch your ass too, okay?"

That was the end of the conversation. Torres and Frank vaulted out of a back window and disappeared into the alleys of Ephyra.

Acheson watched them go, before glancing down at the bandage on his arm. The Locust had some damn good snipers; in his opinion, the grubs would have fielded almost nothing but snipers if they had more rifles. As it was, they had so far been forced to steal COG tech like the Longshot, meaning their supply of long-range precision weapons was exceedingly limited.

Janvier fidgeted at the door, staring down the trashed road at the sniper nest. Nothing had so much as flashed up there for more than ten minutes, and the same thought was chewing on everybody's nerves.

_What if the sniper's moved?_

Unfortunately, worrying didn't solve a damn thing, and the squad still had an objective to accomplish within the hour. The fissure was still three, maybe four klicks away, and that translated to a long walk in Ephyra. If they didn't move fast, they'd never make it.

"Move," ordered Acheson, pointing at the back window that Torres and Frank had disappeared through. "Into the alley. We're gonna have to hump it to the objective."

One by one the squad vaulted over the splintering waist-high wall, slamming their heavy boots down on the ground outside. Acheson went last, grunting with the effort of hauling his heavy kit plus armor through the air; mantling over cover was hard in full gear, and it took more than practice to be able to do it efficiently.

"Single file. Janvier, take point."

The man was perfectly willing to oblige, taking off down the dark, cramped corridor that years before had been lined with all manner of dumpsters and vagrants. He held his Lancer at the waist, ready to snap off a shot at anything that jumped out at him. The guy was good to have on point; he was as cold as ice, with keen focus and unflinching nerve.

Acheson, meanwhile, took up the rear, where he could keep a close eye on the two rooks. He had no reason to trust either of them just yet, especially Tuck. Norman, he knew, had at least seen a little combat before he'd been transferred to Bravo. But he was still a kid, somewhere between eighteen and twenty-one, not exactly scrawny but not _built_ either. His and Tuck's plates bounced up and down with every step, too big for their bodies. In another day and age they would have been tall, well-built university Thrashball players. But that just didn't cut it anymore; you had to have real muscle to carry yourself through days of nosntop, grueling fighting, while you carried big guns to fight even bigger monsters.

They came to an intersection where their alley met a wider, perpendicular one. Janvier stopped a couple meters back, Lancer at the ready. Acheson almost moved up to support him, then thought better of it. Instead he tapped Norman on the shoulder and nodded in the direction of the intersection. The rook apparently had experience here, because he stepped up to the plate without a moment's hesitation or uncertainty.

They stacked up quickly. Janvier braced himself against the wall on the right, gripping his rifle vertically with both hands. Norman took the opposite wall, looking to the older man for direction. Not being one to hesitate, Janvier nodded and whipped around the corner, dropping the rifle into a firing position in one smooth movement.

Norman, to his credit, knew exactly what to do. He turned the corner as soon as Janvier did, dropping his own Lancer into place against his shoulder.

"Clear right."

"Clear left."

Acheson felt like he might glow with pride. Still, he needed to get the rooks into shape, shore them up for actual combat maneuvers.

"Good, but not fast enough. Now keep moving, objective's this way."

They took the perpindicular alley, going right at a swift jog, their armor clanking and clunking as they went. This alley was significantly wider than the previous one, even accomodating dumpsters that were filled with decades of rotting trash. It grew wider as they went, shooting off side alleys on either side.

The end came abruptly, unexpectedly, as the alley took a sharp left turn. Acheson found himself staring at a building on the other side of a wide avenue. He swore under his breath and moved up to the mouth of the alley, slowly peering around the corner on the left. He felt his eyebrow spasm against the lining of his helmet when his suspicions were confirmed.

Just down the street, two blocks away, was the apartment complex where the sniper had been. Five stories up and now on the left side of the building was the corner apartment where Torres and Frank would be heading; even from far away he could see a giant hole in the wall where any sniper could lie up and watch the wide avenue that Bravo was about to have to cross.

He cursed again, louder this time, and withdrew from the corner. The sniper might still have been up there, and he knew grubs; they had cunning, but not smarts. He doubted one would move from its spot, but the "what if" gnawed at him. Not to mention the fact there were at least two of the bastards. For all he knew, the other one was in another building with a perfect shot lined up on him right then.

Norman shifted back and forth from foot to foot, like he had to piss. It would have been a bad time for that, if he actually had to go.

"Sarge?" questioned Janvier. "What do we do? Risk it?"

Yes, they had no option to risk it. There had to be another alley somewhere across the street, and the alleys were the only safe way to the objective. Acheson had patrolled through enough of them over the years to know his way around, but war had ravaged this stretch of the road. If there was another alley it would have been just across the street, on either side of the building he now faced. They had to try it.

"Yeah. Let's go."

A pause. Nobody moved.

"I'll take point," offered Janvier.

"No," responded Acheson, shaking his head. "I'll take it. Move fast and low, on my mark."

They stacked up almost as if they were about to breach a room. Acheson crept closer to the mouth of the alley, licking his suddenly dry lips. Once he started running he'd have precious little time to find the nearest opposite alley and haul ass. He'd be running the risk of being splattered all over the street by a bullet the size of his finger, but what else could he do?

_Come on, Cody. Pull yourself together and grow some balls._

Nothing for it; they had to go.

"Move!"

He ran, Lancer crushed against his chest, exploding out of the mouth of the alley at full speed like a sprinter out of the starting gate. The street, one mountain of rubble after another, seemed to stretch on into infinity; his mind stripped everything away but the apartment looming high above him and his search for seemingly unreachable safety.

Rubble crunched, shifting under his weight. He strained his muscles, pulling himself along, and as he ran he was suddenly hyper-aware of everything around him for miles and miles. He could feel the sniper closing the bolt on a high-caliber round, lining up the sights slowly but surely on the side of his helmet. He could almost hear the raspy growl of the monster as it pulled the trigger.

But nothing came. No distant _crack_, no flash of pain or sudden oblivion. He only remembered that his single goal was to find that alley and sprint with all his might into its warm embrace.

An alley, oh god, where was an alley? He zig-zagged, lunging from one pile of rubble to another, found himself stepping on top of a buried car, hit the ground on the other side so hard that the shockwaves traveled up his legs and forced the breath from his lungs. His holster slapped against his leg; the contents of his ammo pouches flung themselves back and forth within their pockets.

There! An alley! He redoubled his efforts, the feeling of slow-motion peeling away as he put his boots one after another in front of him. He was reminded of his Thrashball days so many years in the paste, of the feeling of outrunning everybody else and leaving his pursuers far behind as he closed in on the goal line. His rifle became the ball swinging back and forth in his arms; the shadows pooling before the corridor marked the safe zone where no opponent was allowed to touch him.

Ten meters. Nine meters. Eight.

_crack_

He almost stopped, almost flung himself to the ground in desperate, unreasonable fear. Instead he forced himself to run faster, harder. He looked left, following the imaginary line of the bullet that was going to kill him as it left that hole in the fifth story wall so far away. He tore at the ground, every muscle pulling and stretching and exploding as he dug his boots deeper, deeper, struggling to make it that last few yards in the vain hope that he could beat that bullet. His mind was screaming _"It's not fair! It's not fair!"_ and his body was screaming _"we can make it, we have to, we're already there!"_

_crack._

The bullet hit with all the force of a speeding truck, forcing the air out of Acheson's chest as it dug a furrow through his armor's left disk seal. He gasped, torn in half at the seams, hit his head against a rusted streetlamp before he even knew he was falling.

Was this how it ended?

Was this how he was going to die?

He slid on his shoulder across the rubble, bricks scattering before him like a wave of masonry. Somehow, his brain preserved his sense of purpose and drove him on even as he fell. Still miraculously gripping his Lancer, he clawed his way across the ground, scraping and kicking and pulling until he had somehow come at last to the shadows of the alleyway.

No. He would not die here.

"_Get up and stay alive, dammit! Don't you _fucking _die here, Cody!"_

The words came back to him through the decades, burning away the cobwebs in his mind, emblazoning themselves on the insides of his closed eyelids. A face stared down at him, lined by years of exposure and combat, remembered as he had last seen it less than twenty-four hours ago. The words belonged to the face, and the face belonged to a man who's ashes were still settling on the ground.

Hugh Rostegas.

"_You made a promise, Cody. Now _keep _it!"_

No. He would not die here!

Every fiber of his body trembling, Acheson struggled to his feet, righting himself with a tremendous effort. His perception of his surroundings returned in an instant, fear coursing through his veins as he remembered his squad.

Janvier came sprinting at breakneck speed, twisting and stumbling as he narrowly avoided running head on into the bewildered Sergeant. Norman came second, a sob of desperate fear exploding from his chest as he dove into the safety of the shadows.

Acheson saw right away that Tuck wasn't going to make it. He was too far behind, just now jumping down from the roof of the buried car, and he wasn't even trying to duck or zig-zag. How many snipers were pulling their triggers right then with every right to expect a successful kill?

No, the rook would make it. The snipers were reloading, or they'd have fired by now. There was no need to worry just yet; Acheson was just too tightly wound, too shaken from his brush with death, to reason properly. The rook had more than enough time to reach safety.

And then, as if to spite his fellow Gears, Tuck caught his foot on a jutting shard of asphault and crashed face first into the rubble. There he lay, motionless, as if he had been struck dead by a silent bullet. For a moment, Acheson wondered if that was exactly what had happen; his heart caught in his chest, his breathing stopped. No!

There was a brief, heart-stopping pause. The Gears stared dumbly at the still body of the fallen rook, unable move or breathe or even think.

Then, suddenly, Tuck raised his head. He began to rise, pushing himself up off the ground, and there came an audible sigh of relief from somewhere in the alley. Acheson felt his spirits rise, a smile form on his lips. The rook could still make it. He still had time.

The Sergeant didn't know what made him look up at that moment. But he did anyway, turning his gaze to the rooftops far above. It fell upon a single building, and that's when his heart jumped into his throat. For an instant he saw a flash of reflected light, like a Longshot's scope catching the stare of the sun.

No, it _was_ a Longshot!

Acheson jumped backwards, slamming into Janvier with enough force to jar the eyes in his own head. They hit the ground, the Sergeant's jaw hitting the top of the other man's helmet. There was a _crack_, the whistle of a bullet passing through the air, and an ear-shattering _BANG _as Acheson's helmet struck a brick wall. Or was that the bullet slamming into him?

Norman had flung himself into the cover of an overturned dumpster by the time the Sergeant rolled onto his back. He was shouting something, waving wildly at the still form of Tuck lying limp in the street.

Acheson's heart dropped like a stone right into his guts. He felt staggered, at a loss. He could only stare.

And yet, Tuck still wasn't dead. He'd only dropped back onto his stomach, one hand on his helmet, as two bullets had cut into the ground on either side of him. He raised his head, almost imperceptibly, and Acheson knew the boy was looking right at him.

"Run!" Norman shouted at the top of his lungs, beckoning. "Run, you dumbass! While they're still reloading!"

Tuck hesitated, began to rise, and then dropped back down as another bullet ricocheted off the ground in front of his face.

shit, he was completely exposed out there!

"Run, now!" screamed Acheson before his brain knew that his mouth had engaged. Not even knowing what he was doing, he scrambled to his feet and stepped out into the mouth of the alley.

Tuck didn't hestitate again. He came to his feet in an instant, exploding out of a squat into a breakneck sprint. A round the size of a man's pinky finger passed between his legs, tearing at the fabric on the inside of his thigh.

There was one sniper left with a chance to shoot. Acheson knew he couldn't stop it, but he was already standing in plain view with his rifle raised at the roof of the building in front of him. He saw the flash of light, aimed down the sights, and squeezed the trigger.

In the end, Tuck's survival came out of sheer luck. There was no way for Acheson to tell if his suppresive fire was having any effect, but even when Tank had brushed by him he continued to hold down the trigger. Only when his rifle stopped spewing empty casings did he stop, backpedaling to safety.

"Move, now!" he shouted, dropping back to reload. He fully expected to take a shot in the back, to hear and feel an armor-piercing round punch his guts out. But it never came, and he kept moving.

Janvier took point again, sprinting down the alley with his Lancer at the hip. Tuck was just behind him, panting hard.

The alley was wide here, practically a side street with dumpsters. There were colored streamers fluttering in the subdued breeze, frayed and pale with years of exposure. To Acheson it looked like a 'welcome home' party had been set up just for Bravo, to congratulate them on surviving the gauntlet they'd just run. Only nobody had shown up, leaving the place cold, empty... dead.

"Hold up," breathed Janvier, sliding to a stop. He raised a fist over his head; Tuck came to a stop behind him, obviously glad for a breather.

"A little break, and then we move on," commanded Acheson. He didn't want to admit it, but he was trembling badly and breathing hard. It took a lot to scare him, always had, but he'd been grazed by two Longshot bullets in the space of an hour and seen a boy nearly killed right in front of him. He tried to tell himself that the shakes were just the adrenaline wearing off, but that was bullshit and he knew it.

"Everybody alright?" he asked, distracting himself from the always disturbing thought of how close to death he'd been.

Norman gave a thumbs up and Tuck nodded breathlessly. Janvier sat down against a wall, cradling his Lancer.

"What about you, Cody?" the veteran asked. "Are you alright?"

"I've been better," replied the Sergeant, resisting the temptation to lie. He looked down at his chest and gulped down a mouthful of gooey spit.

The left disk seal on his chest was scoured with a deep groove, shiny silver contrasting against the rest of his dark gray armor.

"shit," he swore, fingering the mark tentatively. The thing was almost an inch deep; if he'd been running any faster, if he'd started toward the alley just a split second sooner, he might very well have taken the bullet through his vital organs. It was about as close to center mass as one could get.

Norman and Tuck started to sit down, folding over against a dumpster that probably hadn't been emptied in at least half a decade. Tuck was chuckling softly, but to Acheson it just sounded like he was in shock.

"Private," he called, deciding that using the rook's name might have been too formal. "Stop laughing. You almost got us all killed back there."

Tuck's reply rattled Acheson almost as much as the snipers had. There was a hard edge in his voice, a firm vitality that spoke of murderous intent. And that voice had no business coming from a kid who'd been cowering in the street a minute before.

"I won't let it happen again, sir," Tuck said firmly. He paused, then began again, quieter this time but no less disconcerting. "No damn sniper is going to kill _me._"

Acheson opened his mouth to speak, but stopped before he could work up a good reprimand. Something niggled at the back of his mind, a warning. He tensed up, gripping his rifle.

Janvier jumped to his feet, his own rifle at his shoulder. "Did you feel that?" he asked.

The Sergeant felt it alright; that faint vibration in his boots, the ominous rumbling that grows louder and louder as the vibrations intensified. Somewhere, deep beneath the ground, the earth was shifting.

The Locust were coming.

Every man was on his feet when the pulverized ground started moving twenty feet ahead. That was close, horribly close, and in the _alley_ no less. That familiar slow dome began to rise, shrugging off paving that was little more than mosaic. There was a universal reaction to this, and Acheson knew it very well; he had no time to even think, only react as the paving split open and half a dozen big, scaley gray Drones rose out of the ground. He was dimly aware of six giant rifles aiming right at him as he pulled the trigger.

Everybody and everything opened fire at the same time, filling the alley with a deafening, flashing cacophony of light and sound. Silhouettes in the flashing brightness of the gunfight rose and fell, reeling and crashing to the ground. The grubs boiled forward in a wave, seeking cover, charging headlong, guns blazing.

Acheson stepped back as one Drone took shape in the blinding flash, putting a dozen rounds into it before the thing even began to slow down. He emptied the rest of his clip into its chest and dropped back behind the dumpster to reload, hoping to God that the thing was dead. The metal of the dumpster buckled as rounds punched into it from the other side.

There were three grubs left when Acheson finished reloading and returned fire. One of them toppled, spitting blood, when he and Janvier caught it in their crossfire. The Sergeant put another burst through it as it fell just to make sure it stayed dead, his mind running at breakneck speed.

And that's when he saw Tuck.

The rook was advancing on the grubs down the right side of the alley, flanking wide. He moved at a swift walk, emptying his magazine into one of the Drones and the wall behind it before Acheson could react. Out of ammo, the kid rushed the other grub with his bayonet, engaging the chainsaw with a deafening roar as he went. The fool actually walked right into the crossfire.

Everyone was up and running, charging the grub. Acheson swore, unable to get a shot off with Tuck in his line of fire. He half expected the grub to just put the rest of its magazine into the boy's belly or face, but it didn't. Instead, the damn thing counter-charged him.

Tuck was obviously unprepared for close-quarters combat, because he swung the chainsaw straight down with a determined yell, leaving no room for a feint or a recovery. The Drone's enormous right arm shot out, slapping the roaring death machine aside, and then it was on him with a devastating punch to the face.

The rook reeled, his helmet saving him from what might have been a knockout blow, but his Lancer clattered to the ground. Acheson was still running, but neither he nor anybody else was going to make it in time.

Tuck fumbled briefly for his sidearm, slapping wildly at the holster on his leg. With a savage roar, the Locust backhanded him across the face and whipped out a huge, jagged knife more than a foot in length.

The alley suddenly exploded in another burst of sound and light as Janvier opened up on the grub's back. Rounds tore past Acheson's face and arm, narrowly missing him, before they slammed into the Drone's shoulders and the back of its head. That wasn't enough to kill the bastard, but it was more than enough to make it stop in its tracks.

With a yell, Acheson cannoned into the suddenly lethargic Drone and tackled it to the ground. It opened a mouth as if to roar, all full of teeth and hte smell of sickly decay, and then its face exploded as the Sergeant pumped six rounds into its eyes.

The Sergeant was shaking as he rose from his knees. He rounded on Tuck, found the kid struggling to stand, dismayed and confused. He was still trying to unholster his sidearm.

Acheson swore as loudly as he possibly could. He couldn't even work out the proper words, so he just kept cussing until he'd run through his entire vocabulary.

"You dumbass!" he finally managed to force out. "You nearly got yourself _killed! _You could have gotten us _all _killed!"

Tuck shrank away, picking up his Lancer with quivering hands.

No, Acheson could not trust this kid. There was no way in hell he could, not after what had just happened. Yes, he'd handled himself marvelously, and to his credit, the boy had performed better than the Sergeant had ever expected. He certainly hadn't pissed himself and cowered in this, his first firefight. But he'd rushed two grubs that could have easily gunned him down if the damn things had remembered their guns sooner.

"Sir," said Tuck, his voice shaky as if he was about to cry. That would have been the end of it; Acheson would have beat him down if he started blubbering like a baby. "With all due respect, aggressive action is better than defensive _re_action. I thought..."

He stopped there. Acheson knew what he had been about to say. The dumbass had almost blurted out, _"I thought you'd be proud of me."_ The Seregant sighed and rubbed his gloved fingers over his eyepieces.

"Goddamn it, private... you're a lucky sonfabitch."

He opened his mouth to say more when, still going on a full head of steam, when the radio crackled in his ear.

"Acheson? Acheson, do you read me?"

It was Torres.

Relief flooded Acheson when he heard the big man's voice. He needed veterans in his squad, experienced fighters who didn't rush in with the chainsaw when it wasn't necessary, or at least had the decency to yell for cover fire before they did. He was tired of nursing wet-nosed rooks, and Janvier could only pick up so much slack.

But... there was something missing. Acheson froze; something was wrong.

"I'm here, Torres. What's wrong?"

"We took out the sniper, but..."

Acheson swallowed. He knew where this was going. His heart had already stopped.

"What is it, Miguel?"

"Frank is dead."

* * *

**Bravo One - sgt. Cody Acheson**


End file.
